The evolution of religious tourism: Concept, segmentation and development of new identities

Abstract

The current paper aims to analyse the evolution of religious tourism and how the existing concepts, paradigms, and practices related to religious tourism have evolved and changed over time. The principal research methods used in this paper are: historical analysis, comparison, scoping, synthesising, and identifying research gaps. The paper reveals that the concept of religious tourism is gradually transforming and upgrading over the years, as well as it is going through a phase of segmentation, creation of new market niches, and developing new identities. The intensive growth of religious tourism in the global market, its complex structure, and its dynamic qualitative and quantitative changes require a postmodern and multidisciplinary approach and in-depth analysis of this type of tourism, whose previous development has been characterised by partial overlapping between elements of alternative and mass tourism. The current paper reinforces the theory of religious tourism.